Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart - GerIta

Chapter 17

Ludwig lay beside Feliciano, his scarred, calloused hands entwined with warm, soft fingers, his unwavering gaze locked with shining gold eyes. The morning sun had long since turned to afternoon, streaming through the billowing bedroom curtain and painting lines of light onto the bedcovers beneath them. Feliciano's auburn hair glinted gold on the pillow. Ludwig could not tear his gaze away; could not stop himself from constantly reaching out to touch Feliciano, to bring him closer. Gently twisting that one curl that still refused to lie flat, lightly tracing those lips that still smiled so readily, running his hand carefully, reverently, over Feliciano's shoulder and down his side. Here, finally, was the one thing Ludwig had lived for: the one reason he had survived. The one memory that had kept him alive through four years of pain and horror and utter hopelessness. His bright, precious, timeless Feliciano. Here, lying beside him, sharing his warmth and his breath and listening intently as Ludwig tried brokenly to speak about those four brutal years.

It had been easy enough to tell of the beginning. Being arrested by the military police, charged with treason for aiding the escape of an American prisoner, spared the punishment of death but sentenced to humiliation and disgrace without formality or trial. Being sent to the Eastern Front, to a losing battle which everyone knew was hopeless, with nothing but a barely functioning rifle and an expectation to die. But with the Germans losing ground on all sides, the Russian campaign was already lost. There was no chance of holding the enemy back for long. Ludwig spent mere days in an army unit before its inevitable defeat and his capture by the Russians. And then, as a German prisoner of war, the real hell began.

Ludwig paused and looked down at Feliciano's hands clasped with his. He had never told anyone of those horrific years. Even to his grandfather, he could only manage a few broken sentences at best. And even now, he was determined to spare Feliciano the worst of it.

"It's okay, Ludwig." Feliciano squeezed Ludwig's hand. "You don't need to say anything else, I don't mind, I..."

"No." Ludwig shook his head and took a deep breath. "I need to." Yes, he needed to say this, and there was only one person he could say it to. But when Feliciano smiled like that, and nodded understandingly, and looked at him with such innocent eyes, Ludwig knew he did not need to hear all of it. Feliciano did not need to hear that the marks on Ludwig's wrists were from the chains he wore during the short hours he was not made to work. That he could still see the faces of the frozen corpses, dead men's bodies he was forced to pave over. That the scar on his cheek was from a beating that almost killed him, a beating he received for the crime of reaching a hand to a man who stumbled. Feliciano should never have to know such things. And so, Ludwig spoke carefully.

"We worked. That is it: that is all. Day and night, we worked, building bridges and paving roads through the ice. We starved - there was no food, and the little water we were given was dirty. And we froze. Over time our clothes became nothing but rags." Ludwig shuddered to remember it. The beating, the starvation, the rampant disease - somehow none of it compared to that bitter, tearing, inescapable cold. "Our captors..." Here Ludwig had to stop briefly, unable to describe it. ...beat us, tortured us; laughed as we bled, shot us for sport... Ludwig left the sentence unsaid. "They said we deserved it. They said our army did worse to them. Maybe we did - I do not know. The East was not my war."

Ludwig stopped to breathe, to remind himself the horrors he spoke of were now over. The autumn breeze gusted through the open window, lightly buffeting the old model planes that still hung from the ceiling. In the silence, Feliciano brought Ludwig's hand to his lips, then pressed his smooth cheek to the rough, work-hardened skin. A bright, swelling wave of warmth melted the freezing cold, and Ludwig's hand shook slightly at Feliciano's gentle touch. This was why he had survived - why they had both survived. Feliciano said nothing, but his expression was drawn with pain, and Ludwig understood. It took him a moment to go on.